(Source: Financial Times)

Reducing America’s reliance on oil by raising petrol prices to European levels through increased taxes or regulation is not politically feasible, says Steven Chu, US secretary of energy.

The admission comes as Congress considers a cap- and-trade system that opponents say will substantially increase petrol prices just as oil prices soar to their highest level in six months.

In the past Mr Chu, a Nobel laureate, has argued that, if the US wanted to reduce its carbon emissions, policymakers would have to find a way to increase petrol prices to levels in Europe. But in an interview on Wednesday with the Financial Times, Mr Chu said: “At this moment, let me be frank, it is not politically feasible.”

(Source: The Infrastructurist)

Many of you heard through the grapevine (from Congress), particularly, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar — that the new transportation bill would be passed this year. Oberstar even offered September 30 as a target date. Sen Mark Warner (D, Va.) is now saying he’s “not sure” that the estimated $500 billion authorization will happen until next year. According to a story by Terry Kivlan in CongressDaily, Warner thinks that “Congress might have too many big-ticket items on its agenda this year to take on a transportation package.” Speaking at an infrastructure-focused conference hosted by the Departments of Transportation and the Department of Commerce, the senator remarked: “I’m not sure you are going to see a full transportation bill put out this year.”

He’s specifically worried about funding availability in light the fact that revenue from the gas tax, which pays for highway and transit programs, is no longer sufficient to cover outlays.  He called this the “elephant in the room” with respect to infrastructure funding.

 (Source: The Infrastructurist & Reuters)

Reuters has done a lot of interesting interviews this week from its Infrastructure Summit. In thenews service’s latest dispatch, the Senate’s transportation pointperson, Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat, who will marshal the bill through the Senate, discusses her plans for the highway bill.  

Snippets of the interview that would appeal to us are here: 

• “What I think is very important is to index the gas tax to inflation, because, obviously the gas tax is falling behind,”.
• “I also don’t want to increase the gas tax, but I want it to keep up.”
• Confident the bill would pass out of the Environment and Public Works Committee that she chairs and reach the full Senate by the end of the year.
• The Senate is also considering raising the tax on diesel, changing exemptions to the gas tax given to certain groups, taking a percentage of customs duties, relying on private finance, and charging drivers fees based on Vehicle Miles Traveled (The bill’s authors, though, have rejected attaching a small device to cars to measure VMT). 
• We’re looking at options. Are there ways for people to — an honor system, when they register their vehicles — just say, ‘This is the miles I had last year, this is the miles I have this year,’?

Related article:

Fear Growing Senator Boxer Won’t Deliver Progressive Transportation Act

Mileage-based tax expensive idea – HaroldNet ..I see that a congressional committee wants to put a mileage-based tax on cars and trucks. This would involve installation of expensive GPS devices in every …

Our view: Leave miles-traveled tax at the roadsideDuluth News Tribune – ‎Late last week in Washington, US Rep. Jim Oberstar touted spending half a trillion dollars to solve the nation’s transportation woes. …

Mileage Tax Discussion in Congress Helicopter Association International – ‎House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar said he will push for a mileage-based tax on cars and trucks to pay for highway programs. …

Mileage-Based Tax Not the Answer to Our Nation’s Infrastructure Needs Americans for Tax Reform – ‎By the Numbers: WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) issued the following response to Rep. James Oberstar’s (D-Minn) call for a …

More Congress Critters Want To Track And Tax Your Driving Habits Techdirt – ‎For years, various state politicians have pushed the idea of a “mileage tax” for driving, and it’s never made much sense at all. Yet, just a few months ago, …

(Source: Streetsblog & WorldChanging)

The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) has compiled a 100-page report on the experiment that covers a lot of ground, but basically describes the trial as a roaring success. A few interesting features of this report :

• Overhead is low. Because the mileage tax piggybacks on the existing gas tax collection system, it’s easy and cheap for the state to administer.
• Payment is simple. From the driver’s perspective, the mileage tax differs little from the gas tax, other than the fact that their gas station receipts contain interesting information on miles driven.
• Privacy is protected. The state only gets odometer information, not information about vehicle location.
• Evasion is difficult. Even if you tamper with the GPS receiver, you’re still going to pay the gas tax.
• Phased implementation is possible. Oregon doesn’t foresee a complete changeover to mileage taxes happening until 2040. This is a bit too slow for my taste (I really hope gas stations don’t exist in 2040), but the point is that gas taxes and mileage taxes can happily coexist as the vehicle fleet turns over.

Technically, the system worked. Just as importantly, public acceptance was high. 91% of [self-selected] test participants preferred the system to paying gas taxes.… Before the experiment began, media portrayals of the system were almost uniformly negative — and inaccurate. By the middle of 2006, media coverage ranged from neutral to positive, and were far more accurate. Citizen comment reflected this broader trend. ODOT concludes, “Effective communication can lead to public acceptance.”

Click here to read blogger Adam Stein’s take on this subject at WorldChanging.com.  For those interested here is the final report in PDF form. 

(Source:  Bnet.com Auto)

When people use the word “tax” and the phrase “electric car” in the same sentence, they’re usually talking about the lucrative tax credits you can grab onto by buying one.

But there’s another way to look at the tax issue. Suppose, as many analysts are now concluding, the bulk of the car fleet shifts from gasoline to electric. Will we tax EV recharges the way we now tax gas (at 18.4 cents a gallon)? Dr. Lyle Dennis, whose website GM-Volt.com champions Chevrolet’s plug-in hybrid, asks, “Will they raise taxes on electric rates and make EV recharging more expensive? It’s an important question.”

It seems to make more sense to simply switch to a “vehicles miles traveled” tax that’s agnostic on how cars get around. Mileage could be tracked with GPS devices installed in cars. But that’s off the table for now. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said his department was studying the idea, but an Obama spokesman quickly denied it is now or ever will be U.S. policy.

Click here to read th eentire article.

(Source: Greenwire via New York Times)

A temporary hike to the federal gas tax and a controversial plan to charge Americans for every mile they drive will be part of the funding mix for future roadwork, the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee said today.

Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), whose committee is drafting the House bill that will finance the bulk of the nation’s surface transportation for the next six years, said because federal revenues from fuel taxes have fallen, his committee has no choice but to use new financing mechanisms to make up the difference.

“We will have multiple revenue sources as we go into the authorization period,” Oberstar told reporters today. “Vehicle miles traveled will be one.”

 Charging drivers a small fee for every mile they travel is “a more efficient, more effective, more beneficial way to generate revenues into the Highway Trust Fund because it will more accurately measure the effect on the roadways of congestion, of wear and tear on our road and bridge surfaces than a simple gas tax,” he added.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source:  National Journal’s Transportation Blog)

On Feb 26, the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commissionissued its report on how to fund the next highway and transit bill. It called for Congress to enact a 10-cent-per-gallon increase in the gas tax (and 15-cent-per-gallon increase in the diesel tax) in the next surface transportation bill while preparing to convert to a system that, by 2020, would charge people according to how many miles they drive.

This blog is fortunate to have commission Chairman Robert Atkinson and members Kathy Ruffalo and Geoffrey Yarema among its expert contributors. This week, instead of responding to a question, expert bloggers are invited to post their questions about the report on the blog, and Rob, Kathy and Geoff have agreed to spend the week answering them. So fire away, everyone.

Click here to read the responses/questions on this bloggers “interactive” Q & A.

(Source:  Wall Street Journal)

President Obama and Vice President Biden spoke with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood Tuesday at Transportation Department headquarters, where they announced the first batch of stimulus funds getting distributed. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mr. LaHood talked about spending stimulus money wisely, his opposition to an increase in the gasoline tax, new fuel emission standards and more. Below are edited excerpts from the interview.

* * *

The Wall Street Journal: What’s being done to ensure that the $48 billion going to transportation projects in the stimulus bill is spent wisely?

Mr. LaHood: Our people are in touch daily with these DOT secretaries. We generally, having worked with them for years and years and years, know what is fundable. It really falls under two categories. Projects that were started and then stopped because they ran out of money, and something that’s been sitting on a shelf in a DOT office because they didn’t have the money to fund it. Some of these, like the one we announced today (a road repaving project in suburban Maryland), have been in process…These are projects that these folks have known about and have been talking about for some time. This isn’t something brand new that’s been sprung up on them…I don’t think you’re going to see something weird pop up…It’s pretty traditional stuff. It really is.

WSJ: Are you concerned when you hear squabbles between mayors and governors over how to spend the stimulus money?

Mr. LaHood: [Cities] are concerned that 70% of the money is going to the states and they’re only going to get 30%…These disputes, look it, they’re going to take place….In the end, I’m not going to be able to change the idea that 70% of this is going to the states and 30% are going to them. I tried to make a case for them. But the way it’s designed here…it is what it is.

(Source: The Boston Globe)